No quick decision now on issue of redistricting

By David Saleh Rauf :
May 30, 2013
: Updated: May 30, 2013 9:35pm

AUSTIN Prospects for a swift special session focused on the state's election maps were dashed Thursday when the Senate's redistricting chief announced plans to stretch out public hearings over the next two weeks.

At the first hearing of the special session, Chairman of the Select Committee on Redistricting Sen. Kel Seliger laid out an expanded meeting schedule that includes a possible joint public session with the House on Saturday.

If all goes according to plan, Seliger hopes to push a bill out of committee on June 12, setting up debate and a final Senate vote by the end of that week.

Gov. Rick Perry called lawmakers into a special session Monday, immediately after the Legislature gaveled out of its regular session. He sent lawmakers back to work with the specific mandate to ratify a set of voting maps drawn last year by a three-judge panel in San Antonio in response to a lawsuit by minority groups and Democrats challenging the districts drawn by the GOP-controlled Legislature in 2011.

It is unclear how long it could take the House to bring a bill to the floor. The lower chamber will hold its first hearing Friday.

The timeline Seliger laid out bucked the general thinking at the Capitol, where observers expected Republicans to use their strength in numbers to certify election maps by next week.

Along with Thursday's hearing and one scheduled for Saturday, the Senate committee will hold a three additional public sessions, including a pair specifically for civil rights groups to air concerns.

Seliger also opened the door for amendments to be floated by June 10 - the first indication that Republicans are open to even considering tweaks to the interim maps. Until now, the narrow scope of Perry's call for the special session had raised questions as to whether Democrats could bring up amendments.

That topic came up Wednesday in a San Antonio federal court, where judges also are weighing a case involving the voting maps for the state legislative and U.S. congressional districts.

Later Thursday, Sen. Craig Estes, acting as the Senate president during a minutes-long session of the upper chamber, confirmed that the Senate does have the ability to consider amendments to the maps. In a back-and-forth with Austin Democrat Kirk Watson, Estes said Perry's narrow call does not limit how the Legislature can shape the final contours of the state's election maps during the special session.

“We are not bound to only consider the court-drawn maps,” Estes, R-Wichita Falls, said after conferring with the Senate parliamentarian.

Democrats remained leery.

“We can talk until we turn purple, but are they actually going to consider the amendments and accept the amendments?” asked San Antonio Democrat Carlos Uresti, vice chair of the Select Committee on Redistricting. “I hope they do, but I think we all know the answer is going to be, 'no'.”

At Thursday's hearing, Democrats and minority groups blasted the interim maps in question, saying they do not go far enough to protect the right of Latino and black voters to elect state representatives or congress members of their choice.

Republicans shot back by saying these are the same maps that have been in place for a year.

“They are legally sufficient,” Seliger said. “They are the maps we were all elected under and the maps our constituents are familiar with.”

Thursday's hearing also was a fairly tame affair, devoid of shouting matches or political arm wrestling. Lawmakers got some shots in, however. While calling the interim maps unconstitutional, Dallas Democrat Royce West prodded Seliger on whether the state will be providing “bus tokens” for folks around the state to descend on Austin for future public hearings.

At one point, Estes chimed in to take an apparent jab at West, saying some members of the committee have come to the table ready to listen, and “it seems some have come with a closed mind.”

West responded, “I don't know if that was a comment toward me. We came with an open mind during the last legislative session when it came to redistricting and, frankly, got it crammed down our throats.”